Off to New Plymouth for a few days. Well, actually there are three goals: drive the ‘Forgotten World Highway’, visit Mount Taranaki, explore New Plymouth. New Plymouth is the only major city (actually the only city of any size) on the West Coast of the North Island. It is dominated by the sort-of extinct volcano Mt Taranaki (which was called Mt Egmont in colonial times, before the reinstatement of Maori names).
Stage one of the plan was to drive the 150km of the Forgotten World Highway (FWH) from Taumarunui to Stratford. This road follows cart tracks established in the late 1800s and is listed as one of the 10 most dangerous roads in New Zealand. Dont know why, seemed a lot less dangerous than Auckland highways! As usual, plans are fine until the first shot is fired…In our case road closures along the Eastern end of the FWH forced us to detour. The detour didn’t quite work out as planned either…and we ended up driving 80km (48 miles) of gravel roads. Luckily, because we were on the wrong gravel road, we met no other traffic! The scenery was pretty amazing though and we finally got back on to the FWH just before the Moki Tunnel. A hand cut, single track tunnel, no lighting, befitting the Hobbit!
Soon after the tunnel, we came to a village called Whangamomona. Due to a disagreement with the way the NZ government arbitrarily moved them from one district to another in the 1980s, Whangamomona declared itself an independent Republic in 1989. It holds an independence day and votes for its own president. If you drop in at the hotel, you can actually get a passport!
New Plymouth was a really cool place. It actually had a feel of Seattle about it…but probably a Seattle of 30 years ago. The city borders the ocean with streets running straight uphill from the beach. Great restaurants and bars downtown. A terrific coastal foot/cycle path. Mount Taranaki forming a dramatic backdrop.
As is common across New Zealand, the naming of shops and cafes often shows a quirky sense of humour probably stemming from the British love of word games. In New Plymouth we found several including this one…
One great surprise find was the botanical gardens practically in the town centre called Pukekura Park. It is 52ha (128 acres) of beautifully manicured and picturesque gardens including a lovely conservatory filled with orchids and ferns.
There is also a lovely tea house in the middle of the park where we enjoyed a nice pot of afternoon tea and a view of Mt Taranaki through the trees. It felt a little like being in Japan with a view of Mt Fuji.
Linda enjoying the peaceful surroundings of the tea garden…and waiting for the tea to brew!
A trip up to Mt Taranaki was next on the list. A short drive out of New Plymouth to the village of North Egmont, then a scenic road directly towards the mountain and up to the interpretive centre. The mountain and its surrounding park has a huge range of hikes including one to the summit. As we have seen in other parks, the interpretive centre is really well organised and interesting.
We had already decided to make the most of our journeys by following different routes on our return journey. One this trip we returned northwards along the coast before turning East again. we made some stops at some tiny communities of holiday homes (or ‘baches’ as they are known here) – usually alongside estuaries. In one we ran across some children engaging in the time honoured practice if fishing with a big net while hanging off a jetty.
